The purpose of this master?s thesis is to study an electronic reference service from a user perspective. By qualitative interviews with eight students the thesis examines their information behaviour, why and when they use the service, the user?s experiences of the service and the communication with the librarian. The users have all used the Swedish electronic reference service Fråga biblioteket ? Forskningsbibliotek.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if female and male reporters and interviewees get the same amount of time in the news feature in the Swedish news programs TV4-Nyheterna and SVT 1 Rapport. The aim of this study was also to investigate if there is a breakdown of the reporting lines between male and female reporters, that is, if they are reporting on various topics. In our study we also determined if the two television channels in any way are different when it comes to gender.Our main theory was that men are overrepresented both among reporters and interviewees and that they are dominant in both hard and soft news. We thought that SVT 1Rapport would have a better gender balance than TV4-Nyheterna because SVT 1 has been working on gender issues for a long time.We were using a quantitative content analysis to examine the 19:30 news on SVT 1 Rapport and 22:00 news on TV4-Nyheterna for two weeks in November 2010. We examined domestic and foreign news and determined how much time each sex got.

User friendly and usable are two words that are often mentioned in the context of marketing new products. By doing so it adds an extra sense of quality to the product. The meaning of these words is therefore something that every product wants. But what is it that makes a product usable and user friendly? What methodology exists formaking sure that a product is usable? Does it exist applicable processes to ensure user centered development? These questions together with a practical example are parts of what will be addressed in this report.The thesis was carried out for C2 Management, a company that works with supporting other companies in their work with quality and constant improvements.

Outsourcing has grown more so than any other sector of IT services. According to a research by the analytic company Gartner soon four of ten jobs in the IT sector will be outsourced. For a nation like Sweden that means about 40,000 jobs going abroad. Business managers look to outsourcing as a means of reducing their operating cost and their need for capital spending. Companies turn to outsourcing to save money and seek expertise outside.

This study deals with one of the most discussed work environmental issues in the modern society of Sweden today - work related stress, its causes and how stress can affect people in their working situation. Our study is based on a questionnaire among aid handling officers in two municipalities of the middle of Sweden, and two interviews with their directors. We found that aid handling officers has a complex occupational role. We also found that the officers in these two municipalities experiences about the same level of stress.Further in the study, we will deal with whatever could be the cause of the stressful situation, using the demand/control model of Karasek and Theorell. The result shows that despite the similarity of the stress experience, the cause was shown to be different.

In Sweden, a new feminist political party (?Feministiskt initiativ?) was founded in 2005. The main objective of this thesis is to study the reasons and driving forces behind the establishment of the party, as well as to explain the timing of its foundation in 2005. The theories that are used in the study are focused on the individual founders, and the empirical material comprise in essence of interviews with founders.The study reveals that several individuals, as well as political movements were involved in the process of the party establishment. Various interacting factors influenced the founders to choose the strategy of setting up a political party.

The requirement on audit was introduced when ownership was separated from management. The situation that arouse was that not only the owners, but also the stakeholders, required information about the company?s financial position. On this basis the audit would contribute to quality assurance of the financial information. One of the auditor's functions is to assess an ongoing stakeholder opinion.

The transformation within the swedish infrastructure has been a slow process from thebeginning of time. For almost a decade, the traditional form of contracting regardingbuildings and foremost infrastructure has evolved contracting involving the owner to definethe outcome of the product, regardless involvement from the supposed contractor. As forthe swedish market, the traditional design-bid-build (DBB) have been the primary choice ofcontracting. Although changes have been made over time regarding contracting formswithin the road administration, the railway sector has not improved or justified changesregarding choice of contracting, they have conducted same contracting relationshipsbetween them and the contractor.This bachelor thesis, conducted at the Swedish railway administration with supervision ofprofessor Kristian Widén at Lunds University, explores the forces behind the new era ofcontracting within the railway administration. This bachelor thesis focuses mainly oncontracting regarding design-build-operate-main (DBOM), the new contracting formulabetween the owner and the contractor.

This master's thesis aims to study the relationship between two publiclibraries and Berättarministeriet, a foundation that offers free writingworkshops for children in areas with high levels of unemployment. Theworkshops are located in spaces that formerly belonged to the libraries.Questions posed in this thesis are How can the relationship between thelibraries and Berättarministeriet be described?, Why did the relationship turnout differently in the two places? and How does the library see itself, inrelation to Berättarministeriet?The theories used are Ögland's taxonomy for relationships between librariesand local organizations, and Folkesson's theory on interaction betweendifferent professional groups, and this was studied through interviews. Theresults showed a relationship without much interaction, beyond a "handover"of children from one place to the other, with time and shortness of staff beingcontributing factors to the low level of collaboration. Regarding the differentrelationships in the two places the results were not conclusive, butnevertheless showed tendancies of issues in the legitimacy dimension, fromthe library towards Berättarministeriet.

The purpose of this study is to find out, explore and see how children with neuropsychiatric problems like ADHD/DAMP are portrayed and treated in five fictional children?s books written by writers who all are related to ADHD issues, except for one writer.I have done a text analysis performed on five children?s books which can be found in libraries in most of the libraries in Sweden. The analysis shows varying results between the five books followed by a general conclusion about how children with concentration problems are being presented in these chosen children's literature. The main problematic of this study is to examine how these characters are being represented and treated within the scopes of school, family relations and how ADHD/DAMP symptoms are portrayed. This study focuses on analysing how the actual ADHD/DAMP behaviour is being reflected and better understanding for the reader to understand the symptoms of ADHD.Another fact is what kind of relations these children with neuropsychiatric dysfunctions are portrayed when facing with other persons, such as family and friends and how ADHD/DAMP is affecting them daily basis.

This Bachelor?s thesis examines and describes the governmental cultural policy in Sweden. The relation between the state and the market in society is in focus. Earlier research is used to describe the development of cultural policy in Sweden after the world war two until today. Two governmental bills are examined and described, one from 1974 and one from 2009.

This is a study based on discourse theory in purpose to examine the border-politics ofthe EU. Since the EU step by step has developed into an area of free movement on capital, people and services, the external frontiers have been given prioritiy on the political scene. Development in recent years have put questions of foreign- and security politics on a supranational level, meaning that the EU-member states in a wider range now cooperate in these political areas.To handle the increasing ammount of (illegal) migration to the EU an independet agency, Frontex,was established 2005 in favour of coordinating the Member States in issues regarding bordersecurity. The focal point of this study is to critically examine the identity of Frontex by using Becks theory of risk combined with the theory of governmentality. By doing so I seek to highlight the relation between Frontex and the EU and also that of Frontex mission in relation to illegal immigration.

This study presents an alternate viewpoint to the strive to overcome the gap between research and practitioners within paper prototyping in interaction design. Earlier research identifies three aspects of this gap, which is:Practitioners being unaware of interaction design methods and theoriesPractitioners being aware, but choosing not to apply these methods and theories, due to time, budget and constraints of labourPractitioners and research having different perspective on similar design issuesOur study was done by carrying out qualitative interviews with interaction designers based on two digital design bureaus. One of the bureaus has an expressed link to research: the other has not. Our hypothesis is that the gap would manifest as a difference in work practice between the two bureaus.Our study shows that the two bureaus have similarities in work practice and that this work practice is based on scientific methods and theories, but is adapted to fit the client and/or the project. We conclude that the overcoming of the gap might not be necessary.

Voltage sag indices are a way of quantifying the performance of the power supply, as far as voltage sags are concerned. Indices can be defined for individual events, for individual sites, and for a whole system. A standard method for single-event methods is part of IEC standard 61000-4-30.This thesis emphasizes the importance of voltage sag indices and different methods for calculating three-phase voltage sag characteristics. Three-phase events measured in a medium network voltage over period of one month were analyzed, results examined and statistically evaluated. An algorithm for calculating voltage sag characteristics and indices was created in Matlab.

NCC ROADS Sweden east is a part of the NCC Corporation. The company mainly produces aggregates, asphalt and concrete. They have taken the environmental issues seriously and been working with that since the middle of the nineties. When manufacturing asphalt large a quantity of fossil energy is needed. The company is now about to make further progresses by manufacturing environmental friendly asphalt (?green asphalt?) with using bio-energy.